ACCESSIBLE DATA PLATFORM FOR PRACTITIONERS | OngoingMeasuring Main Streets
Measuring Main Streets is a data platform for practitioners in urban development. Traditional data in Canada is not always useful or easy to interpret for local community groups, business associations, economic developers, or policy makers. Now, practitioners can look at key data sets including demographics, spending data, and housing mix, at the neighbourhood for their main street to support better decision making.
85% of Canadians live within 1km of a main street · 280K businesses are operating on main streets · 1.9M jobs are provided on main streets · $300B in annual revenue is generated on main streets · 98K+ civic & community infrastructure assets
Campaign Goals
Position the platform as a credible, first-of-its-kind “main street scale” toolkit that reorganizes key datasets into an accessible format for urbanists and local decision-makers
Increase understanding that main streets underpin resilience, inclusion, and opportunity—and are central to how Canadians live and access services
Move decision-makers from “this is interesting” to “we use this in our work”—for grant applications, council reports, downtown strategies, infrastructure planning, etc.
Build legitimacy with by demonstrating use-cases and issue-based applications.
Key Messages
Find your main street on the Measuring Main Streets map! You’ll find the most useful community-level data for urbanists from housing availability to visitor traffic all in one place.
Main streets are the core of civic life. When main streets are strong, communities are resilient, inclusive, and full of opportunity
Data-informed decision making is critical to creating vibrant main streets, but in practice is out of reach for many decision-makers grappling with complex data sets.
Measuring Main Streets re-organizes the most useful data sets for urbanists at the scale of the main street in an interactive data platform
Examples:
Municipal decision makers & staff
Urban planners, designers & consultants
Economic development practitioners
Non‑profit & community‑based organizations
BIAs, downtown associations & main street organizations
Provincial & federal policymakers & agencies
Researchers & academics
Stakeholders & Audiences
Individuals and organizations who can:
Leverage better data to support decision making for city wide and regional outcomes.
Use data to make the case for their work at the hyper-local community scale – on main streets and in neighborhoods – to get funding, renew programs, etc.
Amplify the significance of main streets as a critical component of society and unit of analysis for data and research in urban development.
Content Strategy
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Goal: Create a dedicated data tool platform to support the launch of Measuring Main Streets and potentially support an additional project that would be released 2 years later.
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Goals: Share the launch of the Measuring Main Streets platform.
Focus on “find your main street” key message as a hook
Focus on broad priority-setting of main streets with new key data
Tools: Canva, HubSpot
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Goal: Share new data platform with CUI’s subscribers who have strong likelihood of adoption.
Clear CTAs to test the platform
Key use-cases and thematic applications
Intriguing screenshots of the platform in action
Tools: Canva, HubSpot
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Goal: host info sessions on how to incorporate the Measuring Main Streets platform into work activities and projects
Schedule and host Zoom webinar
Create targeted invitations for key partners
Support users from curiosity to adoption
Tools: Zoom
Outcomes & KPIs
Outcomes
Strong positive feedback from key partners and stakeholders and continued adoption amongst practitioners as reported by CUI networks including the Main Street Action Network.
Successful renewal of funding to deliver a 2.0 version of the data platform focussed on transit-oriented development and housing potential.
Communication KPIs
10,000 users in the first month after release
Nearly 40,000 users annually
31% e-blast open rate, including pan-Canadian engagement from municipalities, community organizations, and service providers including Metrolinx
Coming soon… TOD on Main!
Fully re-designed website and updated structure
New interactive map focussed on transit-oriented development with case studies, reports, and tools
New housing focussed key messages…
Six case study cities alongside 15 additional resources, tools, and reports to help Canada build responsibly
